30 October 2011

Honey Monster - Spooky Puffs [Ltd. Ed] (Asda & Tesco) [By @NLi10]


As Halloween draws to a close for another year, and the goblins and witches go back to their normal jobs there remains a few products that may just hang around a little bit longer. There will probably be lots of cut price cakes and sweets to be had (oh - what a shame!) but there will also be a few other things that you might just spot floating around that you don't expect. Spooky puffs are one of these products.
Well we've had Honey Waffles, and Cinabar had Banana Puffs way back in 2009, but we've never really had a good excuse to chat about the real thing. I'd say puffed cereal is up there as one of the basic cereal groups (flakes, puffs, malteds, mueslis, porridges, wheats) and the Honey Monster is still up there fighting with Snack, Crackle & Pop and that chocolate monkey for the crown. I'm not sure whether this is an international thing, but over here I'd have to say we love our big scary monster and while the cereal is pretty sweet it's incredibly well balanced and never sickly. It's my go-to cereal in the puffs section and frankly a change in the recipe could be a horrible mistake. When I first heard about the idea I was pretty sceptical as a toffee themed cereal sounded quite unappealing.
Firstly the spookiness of this has to be called into question. The box is a good step towards this and is certainly spooky, but not threatening or menacing in any way. The toffee apple ghouls on the front are particularly cool. I'd be happy to let kids choose this, and at the same time they'd probably think the box was quite daring! More on cereal boxes another time...


Getting down to the eating the flavour was surprising, it was a lot more apple and a lot less toffee. Apple cereals are harder to find, and usually require a visit to the health food shop. I used to have one with dried pieces of actual apple in it many, many years ago and this heavily invoked a similar taste sensation. The toffee was there to be sure, but it played a happy second fiddle to the main flavour. This made the taste a much lighter affair than I'd expected and was a pleasure to eat.
I'd quite like to grab a second box of these before they disappear. The PR blurb says that they did a spooky themed cereal last year too but that it was different, and I think that keeping a sealed pack of these stashed in the cupboard will brighten up a few winter mornings later in the year. And heck - if the seasonality of the box means they may be a little cheaper now then who am I to complain!
By NLi10

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